


Blood and Water

by ShianneUrami



Series: Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014 [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gill!Kat, Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1662170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShianneUrami/pseuds/ShianneUrami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember when Eridan helped Karkat get over his fear of water and taught him to swim?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Water

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [this br1 prompt.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/18819.html?thread=3467907#cmt3467907)

“Eridan, enough! I said it isn’t fucking happening. Stop wasting all this energy flapping your gills and trying to get me to do it. It isn’t happening! What the everloving fuck would possess you to try to teach a shitkicking landdweller, someone who shouldn’t even be within ten miles of the beachfront, how to SWIM?”  
  
“Kar, you know as well as I do that if you knew how to swim you could get away from shit easier.” Eridan half whined. He was wading in the shallows, his cape and scarf folded up on the beach, his tee shirt left with them, shoes under them all, glasses perched on top. He still had his rings glinting on his knuckles, but he was barechested, wearing his slacks still. His operculum were open, the filaments of his gills silky and bright violet, fluttering and eager to drink in the salt and chill of the water.  
  
“Get away from shit? What is this hoofbeat defecation you’re spewing, Eridan? What am I gonna run from? And why the fuck would I run to the WATER?” Karkat crossed his arms over his chest, jaw set staring out at him.  
  
“I don’t know, if some dirtscraper gets a stick up his ass and is all givin’ you grief, you could dive in and swim off where he can’t get you.”  
  
“Right, and right into the hungry, angry, tooth lined maw of the first seadweller who finds a freak of nature like me taking a dip in his territory. Just gonna mosey over, sneak past you there my good friend, nothing to see here, just a landweller who’s trespassing where he doesn’t belong, please don’t gut me and strangle me with my own internals, thanks.” Karkat snarled, raising a hand to rub at his eyes, heaving a sigh.  
  
“First of all, you ain’t a freak a nature. Second of all… Mm, yeah I got nothin’, you’re right about that. You assholes aren’t meant to come into the water. This is ours. You ain’t got gills for a fuckin’ reason.”  
  
A little scoff of breath and Eridan made sure to wipe the sneer off his face. He knew Karkat wholly disapproved of his ‘pretentious bulgerot circle jerk’ nature. An attempt was made occasionally not to be a HUGE festering pile of assholes. Maybe just a small pile.  
  
Karkat stared out at the water at him, brow knitted with a serious look on his face, but one that edged into contemplation, an almost serene look for him. Or as serene as he could look, probably. Lifting a hand out of the water Eridan waved it and Karkat snapped back to reality, his expression hardening immediately, baring his teeth at the seadweller, “What?”  
  
“‘Ternia to Kar, could’a sworn you were graduatin’ cadet trainin’ you were so far out in space just now. What’s your head doin’?”  
  
“My head? My head isn’t doing anything! What the hell are you talking about?”  
  
“No, you’re like, I don’t fuckin’ know, you’re spacey as shit and we’re tryin’ to have a goddamn conversation here. That’s rude. Pay a scrap’a attention, will you?”  
  
“I am paying attention you wavering salt lick, christ. I’m just- I WAS thinking about something, but you’re being a bag of pulsating bulge ends again, so consider that thought revoked.”  
  
“Revoked? Hell no, what were you thinkin’ about?” Eridan shifted in the water, taking a step up to the shore, half a step even. His pusher had fluttered. Karkat had been thinking about something and he’d fucked up and made him mad, of course he had. Maybe he could assuage him again and get him to say what he’d been thinking.  
  
Karkat just growled at him, a rumble low in his chest.  
  
Eridan’s hand dropped into the water and he sighed, watching the landdweller be a wiggler about this whole thing. Eridan licked over his lips, craving the salt he was so close to, but having enough semblance of self to try to reason with Karkat first.  
  
“You’re not AFRAID, are you?” Tilting his head to the side he used a last ditch effort to goad him in rather than coax.  
  
“Afraid?” He scoffed, rolling his eyes, “I’m not AFRAID of the water. The water won’t kill me. It’s what’s IN the water that will kill me.”  
  
“Well no, you could always just fuckin’ drown too. Landdweller lungs and all that garbage. Water is really dangerous, don’t make yourself out to be so high and mighty, Kar.”  
  
Karkat stepped down the beach, striding with purpose before leaning over to swat water at him, the lapping water just reaching it’s way up the shore, trying and failing to pull him in.  
  
“It’s WATER, Eridan. I’m better than WATER. It’s a collection of molecules that somehow when together like they are, end up wet, and drinkable, and essential for life. But it is just water. I’m a living, breathing, moving, thinking troll,” Karkat paused, “We’re literally having a debate about water. That’s honestly what we’re doing. Absolutely mind numbingly amazing. Thank you for letting me have the honor of participating in this fuckfest.”  
  
Taking a slow breath in, and exhaling just as slowly, “Then if you don’t want to learn how to swim, will you just wade in the water with me? Just for a few minutes? It’s warm tonight and the water’s nice an’ cool. There’s nobody within spittin’ distance a here, I made sure.” Looking up at him Eridan put on his best kicked little barkbeast face, “Please?”  
  
Coaxing hadn’t worked, goading didn’t work, but maybe pleading would work?  
  
Karkat watched him, grey and gold darting over his face, down his body and back up to his face, staring at him for a while. He looked up and down the beach before he stared out at the water, at the horizon, the only sound was the soothing lap of the water against the sand.  
  
A low growl before Karkat stepped back up the beach, backing away from him a few steps before he turned his back on him. Eridan’s own growl died in his throat, as did all his protests when Karkat’s fingers found the hem of his sweater. He half turned, baring his teeth at the highblood, “You speak a word of this, and I’ll make sure you wear your guts as a scarf Ampora, you hear me?”  
  
Eridan narrowed his eyes, matching Karkat’s expression for a moment before he settled a little. There was no way that Karkat could overpower him, not a weak lowblood like him, but he’d give him the benefit of the doubt here, “Not a word.”  
  
“I’ll hold you to it.” Karkat vowed quietly.  
  
He turned back to the task at hand, stripping his sweater off his shoulders, dropping it unceremoniously into the sand. His back rippled with scars, little cracks of light in his ashen skin, little licks of stars in the dark. That was what Eridan noticed first and it made his heart give a watery little flop. Karkat had a nice form. Lithe, lean, something he could appreciate. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks, stumbling a few steps before he turned back to Eridan, taking two steps towards him, hesitant, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. He was fighting his fight or flight reactions.  
  
Only when he was a few steps away did he see them, the slashes of color along his ribs, the smell of salt and brine thick in the air, damp and gritty, comforting. Those slashes of color split, cracking his ribs open to show the brilliant red gills along his sides, aching for the saltwater just a few steps away.  
  
All Eridan could do was gawk. Karkat… had gills. This landdweller, this troll, he had gills. Looking from his ribs to his face, his eyes passed the lines of the brightest red he’d ever seen on his throat, and when his eyes found Karkat’s face, all he found was anger and fear. His eyes traveled him again, taking time to watch him. Karkat that he’d bickered with nightly, stayed up all day whining to, he’d thought about in the coon and in the shower, this troll he was fond of, was breaking all the rules, and he was terrified. Like a cornered beast.  
  
When he did speak, his voice sounded strange to him, offering his hand out to him, “C’mere.”  
  
Karkat took his hand slowly, hesitantly, stepping down into the water with him, letting Eridan lead him down into the water, til both their chests were nearly submerged. The clearing of throats was an automatic response, the body shifting from lungs to gills and Karkat eased a little. Eridan’s pusher melted to see him relax in the water, to see the rush of water of his gills filtering for him, even such an atrocious red.  
  
Maybe not so atrocious, it was the color of the Empire itself, the color his Empress used to scare, to intimidate. He was the color of strength and fear, of tridents and regality’s reign.  
  
A hand settled on his cheek, cupping his face, and he leaned in to nuzzle his forehead against Karkat’s, voice soft, “You’re stunnin’.”


End file.
